1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a one-piece non-metallic nut ring for surrounding and retaining an electrical connector at a bulkhead. The nut ring is as strong as a conventional metallic nut ring, but is lighter in weight, non-conductive and corrosion resistant.
2. Background Art
Metallic nut rings have been used in the past to secure the detachable halves of a two-part electrical connector at respective opposite sides of a bulkhead or similar flat panel. In many cases, the backplate of the conventional nut ring is stamped from an aluminum sheet and metallic nuts are pressed through holes at each of the corners thereof. The metallic nuts are threaded to receive complementary threaded metallic fasteners (e.g. screws) by which to secure the backplate against a side of the bulkhead in surrounding engagement with one half of the two-part electrical connector. However, the all metal nut ring is relatively heavy which increases the total weight of the fixture to which the nut ring is connected, particularly when the fixture carries many electrical connectors. Moreover, it has been found that when a strong driving force is applied to the screws during attachment of the metallic nut ring at a bulkhead, the aluminum backplate is not strong enough to retain the nuts in place. Consequently, the screws may force the nuts to pop out of the backplate, thereby causing the metallic nut ring to fail.
In other cases, the backplate of the nut ring has been made of injection molded plastic to better retain the metallic nuts in place when subjected to critical loads. However, the resulting metal-plastic hybrid nut ring still requires both metallic and plastic parts and a separate operation for pressing the metallic nuts in the non-metallic backplate. The foregoing contributes to increasing the cost and time associated with manufacturing such hybrid nut rings.